I would like to thank the coaches/players/former players from the following schools/colleges that voted in the mid season poll:Beavercreek, Boardman, Fisher Catholic, Copley, Miami Valley, Dublin Jerome, Northmont, Solon, Ohio Wesleyan, Ohio State, Tippecanoe High School, Little Miami, and Chillicothe. Please comment below if you have time. I did not vote but here are the results:

I'm not surprised by the results of the poll, I think its a pretty accurate state of the state, so to speak.

But I don't think there's that much difference from the 10th to the 1st team as in years past. There's a lot of parity between the best in Ohio and that's a great thing in my opinion.

Also, Tipp is waaaay too high in my opinion. Maybe flip them with Walnut Hills (who has beaten us once already this year). They are all sophomores except for their third leading scorer. So I think in future years the #12 ranking would be more appropriate if they continue to improve.

Coming from the SW region, not to knock Walnut Hills at all, but they have had their worst start in league play in about a generation. They have had 2 losses already in the ECC, which is more than about the last 7 years combined. I did not nominate any SW region teams in the top 20, but if I had to, the two strongest teams I have seen in my region are Loveland and Ross. I know that Tipp beat Loveland at our tourney, but it was pretty competitive, and Ross got blown out by Northmont, but they are still a very solid team (heavy with seniors in their starting line up).

I found ranking teams past 10/11 spots to be tough. While I can't remember all who I ranked where, I debated myself on whether to consider tournament performance or tradition and potential. I think I may have been a vote for Bexley with the justification of them doing decently well at the rare tournament appearance, along with their potential in general.

Yeah this was hard...the story of the year so far has been the parity that's been on display in OH (I found myself wishing I could have ties on my ballot). Like Tom, I ended up trying to scrape what I could out of some thin resumes, and that led to Westlake in particular as well as Aurora slotting a bit higher on my form.

I'll also jump in with Joe B. and say thanks to the community for the very kind ranking for MVS...we're definitely in that soup of teams that could switch spots rapidly based on all the good and very experienced competition around us. I think any of the teams in the top 2-10 could easily flip (I did have Scioto as a clear #1, but it wasn't a no-brainer), and I also really think distribution and format play a role when trying to figure out who has some whisker of an edge. Would be interesting to try to break down OAC, NAQT, and PACE rankings, but that's too much "fun" even for me!

If I wasn't a player, I would love how competitive Ohio is this year. I personally think 3-6 and 8 are all about equal in skill (also disclaimer I did not vote for Fisher for any spot) and states in both NAQT and IAC should be very interesting.

Inspired by a similar thread on the Illinois subforum on the national board, I decided to take a crack at some stat-based, Morlan-lite comparisons for Ohio so far. Obviously with how close everybody in the top-15 conversation is, the statistical differences are minimal, but I guess it never hurts to have more fuel on the fire.

I ended up doing two sets of statistical rankings, one based on adjusted points per bonus (aPPB) and one based on power percentage (P%). Obviously that means that these are tossup-bonus ranks only, since OAC results don't track those sorts of stats (apologies to teams like Brecksville-Broadview Heights, etc., who play OAC almost exclusively). If detailed scoresheets were available, one could probably do an OAC team comparison on different sets by measuring team round question conversion + alphabet rounds (since like PPB, those stats are independent of your opponent). I know in the past there have been team and category conversion breakdowns for the OAC postseason, and I've always enjoyed reading those and admire the effort they must take.

Question sets included in this ranking were IS-157A, IS-159A, IS-161A, IS-160, WHAQ, and MSNCT-16 (teams using MSNCT-16 had to play the set this season). Now that I have the spreadsheet set up, it's relatively easy to add more data, so as the season progresses there can be updates (for sets like GSAC, for example). If a stat report on the tournament database doesn't list PPB for some reason, it couldn't be included, which does mean some teams that have played these sets didn't have their tournament performances included. The rankings only include results from Saturday tournaments right now, but as league seasons wrap up and stats are uploaded I can create entries for those. I only included results if, according to my estimation, a team was at ~80% full strength or above (I know that's a squishy measurement...essentially if most of a team's scoring was there, I counted the data point since I was trying to avoid having a smaller sample size than I already did).

To calculate adjustments, IS-160 was used as the baseline, since it had the most data associated with it and it represents high school regular difficulty according to NAQT. Rather than take a team's best single performance, I averaged the adjusted points per bonus across the entire season. The spreadsheet, which I will link to at the end of this post, shows each individual data point as well as a separate column listing each team's best aPPB on the season.

*Notes: Westlake & Aurora only have one tournament in the database (IS-157A). Ottawa Hills has only one tournament associated with them since their other question sets have not been used by any other teams in the ranking, so no adjustment can be calculated (they played IS-154 in Michigan and IS-158 in their league). Olentangy Liberty's ranking is actually for their B team, but they've switched lineups so much this year I have no idea what their actual best squad is, so I just ranked the program. Again, these rankings are for entertainment purposes only.

*Technically Boardman ranks higher by 0.05 percentage points, but that was too much hair-splitting even for me. I went back and forth about whether to have more ties. You can look at the raw data and decide where you draw the line.

Just to take things one step further, I decided to try and see what a "combined" ranking would look like. This was calculated by adding a team's position in the aPPB ranking to their position in the aP% ranking (lower is better). For example, Scioto ranks 1 on both lists, so their combined score is 1+1, or 2.

The boost will have to wait until the end of the league season. The ESC folks compile the SQBS file, and it won't get posted until right before the final night at Maplewood JVS.

Meanwhile, in the Mahoning League, Boardman fired off >26 ppb on both A and IS set games Wednesday. If they can maintain anywhere near that over the rest of the season, that will be a League record by a long way.

From a more qualitative perspective, now that we're a little under a month and a half away from NAQT states (with Sidney being the last 'big' tossup/bonus tournament between now and then):

General

Dublin Scioto has a win over DCC A, taking place on GSAC @ Shateyahronya II (O. Liberty). That bodes well for them not just from the perspective of NAQT States, but also potentially deep runs into HSNCT and NSC.

Miami Valley, in my opinion, has certainly lived up to their #3 ranking. Could they be #2? They've been pretty incredible in recent NAQT events. John-John's 42/41/3 at Rowdy Raider is impressive on its own merits; the fact he's only a freshman is mindblowing. They'll continue to get better and stronger by the week.

Beavercreek, I believe, has a winning record against Miami Valley, albeit those games always go down to the wire. They split their series on Sunday versus Dublin Scioto. If the stats are correct, it appears help has finally arrived on the way for Hari. Man, Hari is good.

Sidney I believe has a win versus Scioto on GSAC as well as an IS set win versus the Irish @ Rowdy Raider. Nour, as always, is an elite player in Ohio. I think Sidney will probably face Dublin Scioto in NAQT States' finals. Nour has the experience, strength, and dedication to make an NAQT States win viable.

Copley appears to the most balanced team in terms of production and scoring distribution. Kevin and Tommy are 50+ ppg players with a third hand in Srikar that averaged in the ~30ppg range at both Rowdy Raider and Olmsted Falls. They're always dangerous, and while it's hard to tell where they will place at NAQT States, they're the OAC powerhouse and the team-play aspect of OAC format certainly favors good teamwork and putting minds together. When you have two great players and a solid third, plus the know-how from a managerial perspective as to who best fits the fourth seat in OAC format, Copley will be dangerous at OAC Regionals and (assuming an advance) States.

Fisher - eh... who knows? (Hi Mike, I hope you're doing well!) They have NAQT IS-set wins over Beavercreek and Copley, and an A-set win over Solon. They only have one win over Miami Valley (@ Beavercreek), out of like four or five games. As biased as I would love to be for the Irish, I think they're still a step or two behind the pack (maybe not by much.) Should be a favorite to win the SE Regional, after that...? It seems to me that, while they have some games of brilliance and strength, they can also be underwhelming in games (man, this seems so familiar to me.) If they don't pick it up, they might be destined for another 5-5 at HSNCT.

Boardman - I don't really know that much about Boardman this year, truthfully. It is probably the case they are a much better NAQT team (in terms of current events, geography, and trash) than they are an mACF team. I wouldn't want to be in their morning bracket at NAQT states. (Are they doing OAC Regionals this year?)

Northmont, from the beginning, appeared to be just a hair below the logjam of top six or seven teams, but Kara Combs is pretty solid and I think they will be a spoiler at NAQT states. They had a bunch of close losses during the Sunday portion at Solon, so I'm sure Coach Jones will find a way to tighten that up and turn one TU/B losses into wins.

I don't really know that much about Solon or Olmsted Falls, and I don't really have an idea of what their A teams "truly" look like, so stats inferences may not be a worthwhile investment of my time. Regardless... they will be teams you can't afford to neg four or five times against and expect to beat.

Bexley - ??? (are they going to NAQT states? I feel like I ask this question every year. They should go to NAQT States, they're literally down the 'dang street from St. Charles.)

Small Public Schools

My knowledge of 'small schools' is admittedly pretty limited, but I know that Ottawa Hills got third at Olmsted Falls and should be solid.

The only other thing I know is that Black River (in... Ashland County?) is pretty solid for small school standards. Jason Wright put up 90ppg at Olmsted Falls. I see they are not signed up for SSNCT... if they were to go, I'm sure they could do well.

I think Solon reinforced some of the previous rankings on here. Unfortunately we couldn't make it Saturday, but we enjoyed HFT on Sunday and it was nice having the chance to play teams we normally don't see until states.

My teammates and I liked the OAC format when we played at Cloverleaf, so we'll definitely try to make it to Regionals this year. Ultimately, it all comes down to funding; a nice donation from the DeBartolos last week allows us to go to NAQT states and there's probably about a 75% chance we'll go to HSNCT as well.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum